Extinct

by Charles Wilson

  “Tooth?”

  “The shark was that big, he said. He said it had to be a white. I know he’s not a marine expert, but he seemed pretty damn certain of what he was talking about. But whites don’t go up rivers. So do we have bull sharks and a white?”

  “I want to see the foot.”

  “It’s over at the morgue. And, Alan, deputies called in from the Pascagoula. They’ve been out there looking for an Eddie Fuller and Luke Crenshaw, missing after a fishing trip a couple of nights ago. I haven’t talked to the deputies yet. My dispatcher says they’re on the way in. But they found Fuller’s boat and they told the dispatcher it had a line of punctures across its stern. The way he described them I wouldn’t bet they’re not teeth marks. And, Alan, if it is teeth marks, then whites do go up rivers. The way the dispatcher repeated what they said, the marks would have had to come from something with a mouth big enough to swallow an eighteen-wheeler tire whole—bigger.”

  “Can you get them on the radio?”

  “Hell, I’m not on my radio. I’m at my house. Stopped by to get a hot dog. Hang up and let me get out to the car and I’ll patch us together. Hell, I can’t do that either. The boat they used needed a trailer one of my deputies owned. He’s in his truck. He has a cellular phone with him but I don’t have his number. Hell, hang up and I’ll get it from the dispatcher and have him call you and you can meet me down at the morgue.”

  Alan had been so taken aback by the news of another attack and what the sheriff had been saying that he hadn’t taken time to think. But he did now.

  “Jonas.”

  “Yeah, Alan, I’m getting ready to call him right now.”

  “No. Tell him to not worry about calling me. Tell him to get his boat back in the river and find Carolyn’s father. He’s camping out there with a bunch of kids tonight—and they’re going fishing.”

  * * *

  Fifteen minutes later Alan turned his Jeep off the interstate onto the frontage road leading toward the blacktop in front of Carolyn’s house.

  His phone rang.

  “They were in a frigging Quick Stop drinking coffee!” Stark exclaimed. “Left the phone in the truck. They said they know right where Herald and the kids are. At an old beaver dam about two miles upriver from Carolyn’s. They’re on their way. It will take them about fifteen or twenty minutes to get back to the landing and get the boat in the water. Another ten minutes or so to the dam. They should have them on their way out of there in a half hour or so.”

  Alan shook his head. “Call your deputies back and tell them to stay where they are. I’m not five minutes from Carolyn’s now. She has a boat. I can be to them in ten minutes. There’s no reason to have anybody else out on the water. You need to get everybody off the water. Don’t ask—order them if you have to.”

  “I did that a couple of hours ago. I hate it, but I didn’t even know Mr. Herald was at the dam until Fairley just told me they found some poles there.”

  “Poles?”

  “There was a rod and reel and a fishing pole left there. Probably belonged to the missing men because Fairley said Fuller’s wife told him her husband fished with a cane pole and the other man with a rod and reel.”

  Stark paused a moment.

  “Alan, I was thinking they were fishing and the boat capsized and they went into the water and maybe the sharks got them. But they wouldn’t get back in the boat to fish the river, and leave their rod and reel and pole … would they?”

  CHAPTER 19

  Fred looked at the lights shining from the rear windows of his daughter’s house. If it had been any other time he would have had the boys join with him in serenading her loudly as they drifted past, bringing her laughing outside the house. But he didn’t want to embarrass Paul.

  He looked at his grandson, sitting with his back against Edward’s, ignoring the house as it began to pass out of sight behind them. Paul had looked at it only once, and then with his face down toward the water and only his eyes rotating up toward the bank. And then he had looked across his shoulders to make certain none of the boys had noticed.

  Fred smiled and flicked the switch that turned on the red stern light mounted on a short aluminum shaft at the rear of the boat. Behind him, San-hi flicked on the stern light of the other craft. A mile back, they had left the part of the river where trees rose from each side of the channel, and now to their east the marshland stretched out seemingly endlessly to their side in the moonlight.

  “Can we go into the channels, Papaw Fred?”

  Fred looked toward the tall grass. The brackish water in the narrow passageways winding through the marsh did provide the ideal nesting spot for freshwater shrimp, and they in turn attracted everything from bass to saltwater fish, and the large predators like the gar and the alligator who fed equally on the shrimp and the fish attracted by them. It was a place where it was hard not to catch something. But there were problems in fishing there, especially with a bunch of young boys. Fred looked back at them. “I guess we can, if everybody will be careful about not hanging their hooks in the grass. You’ll be jerking them around trying to get them loose and the next thing you know we’ll have a hook stuck in somebody’s ear. Maybe mine.

  “And,” Fred added, “if everybody keeps sitting quietly like they’re supposed to. If not, then I’m going to make you put your life preservers back on—whether it’s hot or not.”

  * * *

  Alan forced himself to sit a brief moment in the Jeep after he stopped it in Carolyn’s driveway. He didn’t want to scare her to death. It would be so rare for something big enough to leave teeth marks that size to swim up rivers that an attack could almost be ruled out. The boat had become hung on something that had caused the damage. Something. He stepped out of the Jeep to the pavement and walked toward the front of the house.

  Carolyn smiled when she opened the door. She said in a slow voice: “I hope you’re happy … and Daddy, too. I know Paul is—I let him go.”

  A nervous sensation passed through his stomach.

  Carolyn’s expression changed. “What?”

  “It’s nothing to worry about, but—”

  “What, Alan?”

  “There’s been another attack.”

  Her face turned ashen.

  “Not in the river,” he quickly said. “Out in the Sound. But to be safe I’m going to get Fred to bring the boys back in. I need to use your boat.”

  She turned and walked hurriedly toward the telephone at the bookcase. At his questioning expression she said, “I’m going to call him and make sure they’re not already fishing.”

  He walked up beside her as she punched in a number. “He keeps his cellular phone with him when he takes the boys camping in case there’s an emergency,” she said.

  She lifted the receiver to her ear, listened a moment, and frowned. She lowered it and began rapidly punching in the number again. Alan noticed her hand tremble, but she finished the number and lifted the phone back to her ear. A moment later she lowered it again and shook her head.

  “It keeps saying it’s not in use.”

  He took the receiver from her. “What’s the number?” She told him and he punched it in, taking care to go slower than she had with each digit.

  “We’re sorry, the cellular customer you are attempting to reach is either not available or not in the service area. Please try your call again later.”

  “You certain that’s the right number?”

  She nodded. “Let me call Mother.”

  In a moment Carolyn had her on the line. “Mother”—she closed her eyes as she forced her tone to sound normal—“did Daddy take his phone with him this time?”

  It was several seconds before her mother finished with her answer. Carolyn said, “No, I thought I might call and check on Paul. Yes, Mother, I let him go. No, I’m not worried, I … Mother, a friend of mine is at the door. I’ll call you back later.” She replaced the receiver without waiting for a response.

  “Mother said he leaves it off unless he ha
s to use it,” she said, starting toward the back door as she spoke. “She said he’ll call before they go to bed tonight. She obviously hasn’t heard about the attack today.” She shook her head as she pushed the screen door open and started out into the yard. “I’ve been catching up on my bookwork all day. I usually have the TV on but I…” She was walking so fast she was nearly running. “How are we going to know which way they went?”

  “They’re upriver, camping next to an old beaver dam.”

  “How do you know that?”

  He stepped out onto the small wooden dock and undid the boat’s stern line. Carolyn pitched the bow line over the boat’s windshield. “Maybe you should stay here,” he said. “It’s only a couple of miles. I’ll be back with them in a few minutes.”

  “Are you crazy?” she said, dropping into the craft. She slid behind the steering wheel and turned the ignition key.

  The motor roared to life.

  * * *

  At the sound of the outboard motor starting, Fred looked across his shoulder in the direction of his daughter’s house. He was far enough downriver that he couldn’t see even a faint glimmer of lights now, but the motor sounded as if it had started right behind the house.

  Now the motor opened wide. Even at its distance, the whine as it wound to full power came clearly through the dark.

  Paul looked up the river toward the sound.

  * * *

  Carolyn’s dark hair whipped in the wind streaming past the craft. “I asked you how you knew where they were?” she said over the roar of the motor.

  He stood next to her, his hands on the top of the windshield. “Some deputies saw them earlier today. The deputies didn’t know about the attack in the Sound. They’d been on the river all morning.”

  “What were they looking for?”

  When he didn’t answer immediately she looked at him.

  “Alan.”

  “Two fishermen disappeared a couple of nights ago.”

  She looked at the throttle, but it was leaned forward as far as it would go. Behind them a wide wake rolled out to crash into the bank on one side of the channel and cause the tall water grass on the other side to weave back and forth like it was dancing.

  Ahead of them trees rose from both sides of the river. A minute later they passed in between them.

  “They said only a couple of miles,” he repeated. “We’ll be there in a minute.”

  Ahead of them the wide beam of the bow light brightly illuminated the center of the channel and reflected out against the trees to each side.

  Behind them the boat continued to form a wide wake, now spreading out to crash into the banks to each side of the river and slosh back toward the center of the channel.

  A bug glanced off Alan’s cheek and ricocheted to the side.

  “There,” he said.

  Carolyn pulled the throttle back.

  A small wave building in front of its bow, the boat settled lower in the water and coasted toward the gap in the dam.

  Carolyn edged the throttle forward and turned the wheel, lining up the boat perfectly and passing through the gap with inches to spare on each side.

  Dark outlines of three tents could be seen to one side of the slough. No fires burned. No one moved about.

  “Daddy!” she called.

  “They’re fishing,” he said.

  She spun the wheel, turning the boat sharply, and pushed the throttle forward. Branches protruding from the dam brushed roughly against the boat’s side as it sped though the gap toward the center of the channel.

  Carolyn shook her head.

  “Which way?”

  CHAPTER 20

  “Hang on!” Armon yelled and laughed loudly.

  San-hi’s long arms yanked back and forth spasmodically with the darting motions of the big fish he had on the line.

  Paul leaned out over the side of the boat as he looked back at the jerking line.

  “Not too far out, Paul,” Fred called from the other boat.

  “You’re not keeping the line tight,” Paul said to San-hi.

  “Paul,” Fred called, “I’m going to make you put on your preserver.”

  Paul eased his upper body back inside the boat, but kept his head and neck extended out over the water, dimly glowing red from the craft’s stern light.

  San-hi lost the fish.

  Armon roared his laughter.

  The Vietnamese stared across the water at his friend.

  Paul nodded knowingly. “I told you,” he said.

  San-hi stared at him.

  Armon laughed again.

  Fred smiled.

  The water swirled several feet out past the side of the trailing boat.

  “A big one,” Paul said. He lifted his cork from the water. Leaning forward, he flicked the end of his pole, flipping the baited hook out as far as he could. It landed several feet short of where he’d seen the swirl.

  He frowned. Behind him, Edward yanked his pole, and his hook popped clear of the water.

  “I’m glad Martha fixed a lot of sandwiches,” Fred called from the other boat.

  The water out in front of Edward swirled, and a big bass came half out of the water after a dragonfly.

  “Read it and weep, Edward,” Armon called from the other boat. “That’s the one you lost.”

  Then a rapid swirl in the water a few feet to the side of where the bass had disappeared, followed by a long ripple running several feet across the surface pulled Armon’s eyes to the spot.

  San-hi stared, too. “I think an alligator just got your bass, Edward,” he said.

  * * *

  The spotlight on the bow cast a wide beam of bright light in front of the speeding boat. Carolyn shut the spotlight off and stared ahead of them down the channel in the dark.

  She couldn’t see any lights at all.

  * * *

  The two small stern lights raised on short shafts at the aluminum boats’ rear illuminated the boys in the craft in a red glow and cast a circle out over the water.

  Armon slapped at a mosquito on his broad forehead. The young blond on the seat in front of him passed him a can of insect repellant.

  Armon sprayed it liberally up and down his arms, around his tennis shoes, and onto his palms, then rubbed his hands around his face. In the other boat, Paul’s cork jerked under the water. He yanked up on the line to set the hook.

  The end of the pole suddenly bent into a sharp curve. The line sped toward the front of the boat. The older blond ducked as Paul’s pole swung over his head.

  “What’n hell?” Armon said as he looked across the water.

  The line circled the bow, straightening the pole toward the water. The fish rippled alongside the boat. Edward ducked as the pole came around over his head.

  The fish splashed near the stern and its thin body, four feet long and spinning, jumped clear of the water.

  “A gar,” Armon said. He laughed. “Catch it, Paul.”

  Paul’s arms strained as the fish dove deep, pulling the tip of the pole underneath the water, clanging the side of the pole against the edge of the boat.

  The fish splashed clear of the surface again, dove …

  And the line snapped.…

  The tip of the pole popped into the air and vibrated.

  Paul frowned.

  * * *

  Carolyn caught the faint glow of the red lights ahead of them. She switched off the bow light to cut its reflection off the water.

  “Is it them?” she asked above the roar of the motor.

  “It’s two boats.”

  Carolyn looked at the water flying past the speedboat’s side. It had never seemed so black to her before. She looked across the windshield again and caught her lip in her teeth. Ahead of them, the red lights moved slowly toward the edge of the marshland.

  * * *

  Somebody slapped at a mosquito.

  Fred used a paddle to guide the boat toward the narrow channel running off the river into the marsh grasses.

 
; Armon turned the other boat with him.

  The sound, of a speedboat approaching from the rear grew quickly louder. A bright spotlight glowed from its bow.

  There was an audible plop.

  “Son of a bitch!”

  “Armon!”

  “Sir, the little bas … he hit me with a water balloon.”

  Holding his arms out, Armon looked down at the water soaking the front of his T-shirt and jeans. The younger blond brother stared out across the water.

  “Milton,” Fred said.

  The boy kept his stare out over the water.

  “Milton.”

  The boy’s face slowly came around.

  Fred didn’t say anything.

  Slowly, the boy slipped two water-filled balloons out from behind his hips and placed them in the bottom of the boat at his feet.

  “Milton,” Fred said again.

  A half dozen still-unused balloons came from behind the boy this time. Armon leaned forward, grabbed them and stuffed them into his jeans pocket.

  The light behind them became blinding and the speeding craft coming downriver turned directly toward them and slowed.

  Paul raised his hand in front of his face and looked back into the light.

  “Daddy,” Carolyn called.

  Paul frowned.

  Carolyn guided the speedboat between the two smaller boats.

  “Daddy, there’s been another attack—in the Sound. There might have been another one here on the river. There’s two men missing and deputies found their boat and said it has teeth marks across its stern.”

  Paul’s face tightened.

  Fred’s face had a questioning expression across it.

  Alan nodded. “I know it sounds crazy. I haven’t seen the boat. But the deputies told Jonas that’s what it looks like.”

  The boat paddled by San-hi came around the right of the speedboat. Fred’s boat, rocking gently on the small waves created by his daughter’s boat, drifted on toward the shallow channel running through the marsh grasses.

  “Tie the boats here,” Alan said, “and we’ll take you back.”